Penning Hens

Not a joke. We’ve moved on from fetching and putting them into their coop. I was thinking they’d pretty much eaten all the grass in my backyard, might as well let them work on the front, so lately I’ve been bringing them out to graze it.

Well, obviously, I was going to need to contain them if I didn’t want to shepherd all day, and I had all these ex-pens lying around . . .

And finally, after a few days of this, the chickens got with the program and went pretty easily down the “chute” that is my sideyard out to the grass. They didn’t make a run for places they could get lost (under the porch, in the ficus, etc), and I find that when one does escape, they usually come on back when they see me. Chickens, believe you me, are definitely herd animals. They want to stick together and they want to stay near home. That makes the next logical step . . .

Using the dogs to drive them down the chute (side yard), into the open area and into the center pen.

Holy cow, this is fun. I started with Fury because she’s a lot more gentle on them than Rippa is – like ducks, they tend to give up and submit, and Fury is more likely to just sit on top of the chicken and lick it than munch it.

Well, despite not using her on stock since well before Rippa was born (so maybe four years), all the chicken practice in the back yard made her mind pretty well and before I knew it, we were slam-dunking the center pen, even with trucks and bikes and all kinds of obstacles.

Checking for a command . . .

They overshot the entrance and went the wrong way, so I sent her on a way to . . .

And then asked her to turn back (she gave me SUCH a nice shoulder), and came “go by” and tight enough to smush them in but not overrun them . . .

Balanced up right here . . .

Okay, Kristin, you can close the gate!

Rippa is allowed to put them away because that doesn’t involve quite as finite details (I don’t really think she knows her flaking commands, for example) since all I need her to do is fetch them back to the side yard out of the pen and they go right in.

The dogs are happy, and so am I . . . while we wait for the right property and our own real stock to work and mow the lawn . . .

I can’t believe how much is coming together now that I own my own stock . . . learning to understand just what the stock need to be thinking like for success . . . when to introduce dogs . . . how much pressure everyone can take.

And for the most part, I scream in panic a lot less. It also amuses my neighbors as all get-out.

I’m getting pretty good at this . . . maybe we can trial on ducks in the future . . . but what happens if Fury decides to lay down on one and lick its cloaca?